by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
The Jacksonville Historical Society was founded May 3, 1929, 28 years to the day after the Great Fire of 1901 that destroyed almost every structure in the city. Since then, the organization has collected and preserved a multitude of artifacts detailing Jacksonville’s history from handwritten documents to DVDs.
Society Executive Director Emily Lisska said it’s impossible to give an exact count of the vast collection, but it’s large. “It’s well over 1 million items,” she said.
Lisska began her career in historic preservation as a volunteer and became the society’s executive director 16 years ago.
The Jacksonville Historical Society is housed at historic Old St. Andrew’s, a deconsecrated church in the Sports Complex between the Baseball Grounds and the Arena. Lisska’s office is the former construction office for the church restoration, which was completed in 1998. Today, the old church is rented for weddings and other social and business functions.
“The first service at St. Andrew’s was held on Easter Sunday in 1888,” said Lisska. “That summer, Jacksonville suffered the yellow fever epidemic and many people died, including the (church) mission’s founder, Col. J.J. Daniel.”
Next door is Merrill House, a two-story former residence that opened to the public in 2006 and is a living museum. Tours of the church and the home are part of the society’s mission, giving visitors a glimpse of what life was like in Jacksonville more than a century ago.
The society’s active collection is housed at Jacksonville University and another site near the office is where the uncatalogued acquisitions over being evaluated and inventoried.
“We have been the recipient of so many wonderful objects,” said Lisska.
One of the newest acquisitions is a collection of land records dating back to the late 1700s. Most of the originals were destroyed when the County Courthouse burned to the ground in the 1901 fire, but a local title company had copies of the deeds and recently donated them to the society.
“What we have is so much more than a library. Our archive contains items that can’t be replaced. We’ll spend years studying the things we’ve collected.
“These are nice digs,” said Lisska of the archives and restored buildings. “We’re able to absorb ourselves in Jacksonville’s history every day.”
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